Burn Out
by Jersey Wolf
Summary: People tend to have preconceived notions of how they'll react in extreme situations. What if I get in a car accident? What if I got robbed? What if, what if, what if? Well, what if you saw death coming? How would you feel? Tom One Shot, R&R Please.


**Author's Note:** Guess who's on summer break you guys! Yep, ME! Ok, moving on from my general stupidity, here's something new for those of you who read my stuff...oh ye few...anyway, I had this idea in my head for the longest time. I think it might have come during the second time I watched the movie, and I've watched it several times because I'm weird and such things, but I guess you already knew that. So, yeah, enjoy or whatever. Also, no, I don't know how he's saying this. It's a goddamn ghost or something. Figure it out yourself.

Looking death in the face is an interesting thing. I realize that might be the understatement of the year, but really it's a hard to thing explain to someone who's never done it or experienced it. It's a terrifying thing. Yes, I like terrifying. Terrifying is a good word for it. Watching it coming toward you and knowing that you're the one it's after. Charging closer like a wild beast. Terrifying. That has to be the scariest thing in the world. Seeing the end coming closer and closer and knowing that there's nothing you can do to stop it or slow down its procession. How do I know? I've stared death in the face. I've met it head on and what a pathetic show I put on when confronted with such a monster.

Some people die peacefully. They've probably had the time and the strength within them to accept the fact that their fate is what it is. People with terminal diseases or old people who have lived their lives and are at peace with themselves and what they did with their time on this planet. Those kinds of people. The kinds of people I'm not. It must be a nice feeling to some extent, contentedness in how your life turned out. I didn't get that luxury. I wasn't old. Not even thirty. And I didn't have some sort of terminal disease. Yes, there was something wrong with me, a disease of a different kind, but not in the terminal sense, at least not directly anyway. One of the many downfalls to mental illness is that it won't kill you itself. Something else comes up and bites you in the ass because of it though. Many are lucky enough to avoid being bitten, but some people are much less lucky and get the teeth.

I had no intentions of dying that night. I liked being alive even when things were at their very worst. It's better than the alternative by far. I could even cheer myself if only a little bit from time to time by reminding myself that I wasn't dead yet. That I had years and years of time left to make up for how bad things felt and how bad I believed them to be. So much for that. I hadn't had the time or the strength of mind to come to terms with my impending doom and I was paying for it dearly with my panic and anxiety. It's rather hard to do when your death is only seconds away. It's hard to do when you're about to catch on fire.

I wish I'd had the sense to keep my mouth shut. The sense to just let her walk away with her victory and remain where I was restrained like a dog to a post when it's been bad. Handcuffed to that stupid car, pulling and whimpering as if that would do some good until the soreness in my wrist pleaded for me to stop. But no, I was upset. Too upset to control the words that built up deep inside and snarled and hissed to be let out. Too upset to care about the trail of gas between her and me was very much there. Too upset to be able to comprehend that she was being more merciful to me than I could ever be to anyone. Too upset to keep my damn trap shut for at least until she was out of earshot.

I really didn't think that she'd kill me. I didn't think she had it in her to do something like that. I didn't think she would stoop to my level even after all that had passed between us in its infinite ugliness, even when she took my eye. I didn't think she would be able to bring herself to kill someone who couldn't fight back. I mean…she wasn't and isn't me after all. She was a good person. At least I had thought her to be, but I guess I was wrong. Everyone has his or her breaking point. Even normal people can snap. I should know that. I of all people should have known what stress and anxiety could do to the human mind. But I was too upset, like I said. Too wrapped up in my own bullshit to care that I was about to pass the point of no return in the most final of ways.

They say that if you have to see your life flash before your eyes that it should be your mission in life should be to make it worth watching when the time comes. As I watched he lower the tazer to the ground I realized that I could bring nothing decent to mind. I had done nothing to live up to those words. My life, it was hardly worth living. Hardly worth remembering even by the person who had lived it.

Sunny days in California with dark clouds of self doubt hanging low around me. Faces of people who I thought had meant things to me and that I had foolishly had hoped had felt that I was something to them. A long trip across country in hopes of finding that mystical, possibly imaginary, place where I could feel that I belonged. Multiple jobs before finding the last job I'd ever have. The friendly faces that were in painfully short supply. Long shifts spent daydreaming of a life that I would never have and the pretty face that gave me something to shoot for. Rocky, my best friend in the world. Those memories stung the most, as his bloody death was still fresh and unwelcome in my mind. All these thoughts brought a tightness to my chest that was different from the fear that was also pressing on my insides. Strange since I should have felt joy in seeing such things and the few pleasant memories that I was able to dig up from my life, but I did not. I didn't want things to end like this and that fact was hindering my ability to enjoy the piss-poor life the was running around in circles in my mind's eye. I realized that as I returned to whatever reality all this was happening in. I didn't want to die. There was still so much for me to improve upon, and yet I knew I would never get the second chance I would have liked at that very moment.

I had always thought that I'd be one of those people that would be able to stare death in the face and be able to face it with the courage and stoic attitude of the people in the stories I read. That I would be able to swallow my fears and die with dignity and honor. Heroes don't cry for themselves when they die. What a stupid, romantic fool I am. I guess California boys can be just as air-headed as their female counterparts. How could I expect such things of myself? Such greatness and glory from one as cowardly as I…how? When I saw the flames coming for me I was frightened. I was scared. Meaningless words came from my mouth as if somehow my protests would make the fire stop. That death would somehow yield to me if I made myself humble and weak in its presence. I couldn't stop myself even though I knew how much I sounded like a pitiful broken record.

_No, no, no…_

I could hear my panic and my fear. My voice raising and lowering awkwardly and without any guidance from me. Never before in my life had I been so certain that I did not want to die. It was as if someone had suddenly switched on reality and brought me back to actual rationality just as I was about to lose it all forever. How very cruel the mind can be. It made me continue to try and free myself despite the pain I felt as metal dug into my skin. I couldn't let myself believe that this was going to be the end. What was worse was that I felt like crying. So much for my hopes of dying with dignity like some martyr in a novel. My eye stung not just from flames but also from the pain of trying to keep myself from losing it even more than I already had. I was weak. Am weak. And there's nothing I could or can do to change that fact. There is nothing quite so humbling as being helpless and knowing it.

I had never really been afraid of fire. In fact I believe I may have even really liked it. Loneliness had been and still is my greatest fear, and I always had associated it with being cold and dark not warmth and light. Fire was for warmth and companionship. The warm California sun on a beautiful summer day. A barbeque on the Fourth of July. A warm campfire in the middle of the woods and the bright, burning stars. The fireplace burning in all the Christmas picture books with the happy family sitting around it as they soaked in its warmth and the warmth of the loved ones beside them. The flames of passion that can be found in just about any book with a bit of romance. I wanted it. I wanted the warmth that I saw in other people's lives and not in my own. I did not want this kind of fire. This was not the calming warmth of love or the wild flames of romantic passion but rather the burning embers of rage and resentment. And I deserved every bit of it. I know I deserved it more than most people deserve bad things to happen to them. I had played with fire and now it was time to burn.

Until the fire actually started to burn me way, I had the silly notion that this was all a bad dream. I felt that this couldn't possibly be anything but a scarily real nightmare. That as soon as I was engulfed that I would bolt up in my in my bed in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, shaking like a damn leaf, but nevertheless alive. Be back to reality and relative comfort. It wouldn't be the first time I would have had a dream so vivid. I wouldn't accept that this fire beast was as real as I was. That is until I felt it. My feet first since they were the farthest out, and man, people aren't lying when they say that burning is the worst way to die. You can feel it, see it, and smell it. You ever smell cooking human? I have, and it's something you never want to smell. It's enough to make your stomach churn especially when coupled with the stink of gas. As I watched it take over more and more of me, swallowing me up, I became all too aware of how real all of this was. I was going to die, and I knew it. You don't just imagine that kind of pain.

My words degenerated into just screaming and frustrated sounds. I was beyond caring. I knew no one was listening to me. If they hadn't listened before that moment then there was no reason for them to listen now. I knew no one cared. If they did someone would have cared years ago. I was being completely selfish and whimpering for my own pain and my own feelings. I was completely self-absorbed in that moment and I couldn't have cared less. I was dying, and there was nothing I or anyone else could have done to change that fact. If ever there was a time to completely lose it, freak out, and just regress to an upset, blubbering mess of a child this was it, so I did. I lost it.

And then…Boom. A deafening noise that I only caught a little bit of since at this point I was essentially a human wick and it was that Earth-shattering, at least to me, boom that finally did me in. It's strange to admit, but at that point it was welcome. It was quick. It made it all stop. It made it all go away. No more stinking smell of gas and burning flesh. No more searing pain and stinging eye. I quite literally went out with a bang. It's a terrible joke to make, especially about something like this, but I seem to have a thing for jokes that nobody but me enjoys. One of many things I learned about myself that night. Shame I never got to do anything with that knowledge.

I'd always said that the job would kill me. Be the death of me and things like that. Sometimes I would be joking. Sometimes I wouldn't be. Even so, I had never imagined that I would one day eat those words. Never imagined that I would look death in the eye and cower at its might. And yet, I did those things. Albeit, not of my own free will, but that does not change the fact that it all happened. The fact remains that I'm dead as a doornail, and there's nothing more to be done to help me.

I suppose my death will mean very little in the grand scheme of things, but I guess that's for the better. Life, as they say, goes on. Maybe the world is better without me and my moodiness, but I'll never truly know. I'm no longer able to be completely sure of anything but death anymore, and I suppose it's not so bad. I would say things could have been worse, but I honestly can't think of a worse way to go out, and yet, I really can't bring myself to be upset anymore. I'm beyond it now I suppose.

There's a saying that I'd heard a few times stating, "It's better to burn out than fade away". I had never thought much of it, but now I think it's too painfully relevant to not take notice of. More relevant than I think it is to people who are still tangible. I burned out both figuratively and obviously literally at some point, I've heard that gas fires just have to burn themselves out so it could have taken a while. I've felt the flames of life get swallowed up by actual flames, and I can honestly say that I do not wish the same fate upon anyone. I'm not that much of an asshole. I hope not. And you know what? Fading away really mustn't be as bad as that saying seems to make it. In fact, now that I think about it fading away seems really nice.


End file.
